Chapter 4
Patrick
stared at the woman standing in the heather with her stockings in shreds and flinched at the way the past and present seemed to be layering themselves over her.
One moment she was dressed in long skirts and a shawl, with her hair whipping around her face from a breeze only he seemed to feel, the next she stood in a black suit fit for any number of corporate endeavors.
What was she doing here, planting herself in the incredible delusion he seemed to be laboring under? And why was she staring at him as if she’d never clapped eyes on a man before?
By the saints, he hadn’t come here for this.
He’d come to Culloden’s field to brood. He came here when he felt troubled, for it reminded him of how fortunate he was to live in the hills with forests and beautiful places to wander.
But this time when he’d stepped onto the flat, unbelievably ridiculous place for a Scot to fight, he’d found himself thrust back into that fight.
Gunfire had exploded from the British ranks before him, his countrymen screamed as they fell all around him.
He alone had stood there, unharmed, in the midst of a battle that had been doomed from the beginning, in a locale no Highlander would have chosen if he’d had the choice.
The smoke had cleared, but his grief had not.
And it had been in the midst of that grief that he’d noticed something move out of the corner of his eye, then turned to see a woman standing there, that woman, dressed in the eighteenth-century garb of a Highland lass.
The wind had blown her skirts about, carried her voice off in a direction he couldn’t follow.
Then he’d blinked and in the place of that Highland woman had been a modern-day business type who looked as if she’d just stepped out from the office for a brief romp in the heather.
So now he stood, staring at her, wondering what in the hell he was doing standing there gaping at a stranger.
And wincing at the feelings of timelessness that washed over him at the very sight of her.
He took a step or two closer to her, which was against his better judgment given that entirely unsuitable flash of feeling she engendered.
He shrugged it aside with great effort and concentrated on something else.
“Did you say something?” he asked loudly.
“I . . . um . . .”
He made the grave mistake of looking her in the eyes again.
The jolt that went through him startled him so badly, he stumbled backward.
With skill and grace even Baryshnikov would have admired, he avoided landing fully upon his arse, but it was a near thing.
As it was, he left his dignity behind as he hopped about in the heather trying to regain his balance.
“Out with it, woman,” he demanded, his pride quite stung. “I haven’t the entire day to wait for you to find your tongue.”
The words were out of his mouth before he could call them back, though he wished quite suddenly that he could. It wasn’t his habit to be rude to strangers, especially strangers who happened to be women.
The woman went quite red in the face. “Nothing,” she said briskly. “It was nothing at all. My mistake.”
A Yank. Patrick watched as she turned and practically bolted from the field. Perhaps ’twas just as well. The last thing he wanted to entangle himself with was a foreigner.
Never mind that both his brother and his cousin had married Americans and found themselves quite content with their situations.
Nay, such bliss was not for him. He wanted a Scot, someone who loved his land as much as he did. He had no intentions of hopping across the Pond to live on yonder fruited plain. He had no desire to eat McDonald’s three times a day, unravel the ridiculous rules of baseball, or drive on the right.
Besides, he found Americans, when they weren’t rudely tramping over his land wearing Hawaiian-print shirts, generally quite too solicitous for his taste.
He was surprised that wench in her black suit hadn’t asked if he’d needed help getting off the field.
She’d had that look about her. Did he truly appear so feeble?
Was it his fault that everyone seemed to find him desperately in need of aid of late?
Take the woman the day before who had stopped her car and offered—
He froze.
It had been her. The same one who’d extended an offer of aid after he’d made that great hash of his Vanquish. She’d probably chuckled all the way to her hotel with visions of his repair bill. He hoped she’d been properly amused.
The breeze picked up again, blowing his hair about and tugging on his coat. He jammed his hands into his pockets and scowled, fully dissatisfied with the course his morning had taken. The only thing he hadn’t done was wreck another of his automobiles.
The strains of a battle dirge wafted his way.
“Bloody hell,” he bellowed, “will you cease!”
The piper seemed not to take offense, but played on.
First a woman who unsettled him to the core, then a damned ghostly player who seemed to have nothing better to do than to haunt him.
If there was a deeper meaning to it all, he didn’t want to know.
The pipes he could ignore. More difficult was the woman, but her impact he could put down to the fact that he’d seen her yesterday and she’d certainly been eager to help him during a thoroughly humiliating moment—
It is more than familiarity . . .
.
Patrick ignored his heart. Fickle, unreliable bit of him that was forever leading him astray. The woman seemed familiar because he’d seen her the day before.
’Tis more than that . . .
.
Aye, the ridiculousness of a woman traipsing about a graveyard in a black business suit. What was she then, some traveling executive slaying time between meetings? She’d have to pop into Boots for a new pair of stockings if she had the high and mighty to meet with that afternoon.
Go after her . . .
.
To what end? She would find her way back to the visitor’s center easily enough, her bruised feelings would heal, and she would manage to get herself a new pair of hose.
Let her see to herself. He had his own business to attend to.
Not that any came to mind right off, of course, but he would work on that after he’d finished brooding.
He stared determinedly out over the field, waiting for dark thoughts.
None came.
In fact, as the breeze blew over him and the pipes behind him began to play something altogether quite undirgelike, he felt a brush of something quite unexpected wash over his soul.
Something sweet.
Some bairn downwind with an iced bun, no doubt. He scowled, hesitated, then scowled some more.
He was not having a good day.
He jammed his hands farther into his jeans and ignored the urging from his heart. He didn’t need to apologize to a woman he didn’t know. She would have a perfectly lovely afternoon without any more of his input.
He stood there, listening to the pipes, feeling gentleness tug at his soul, and found that he just couldn’t brood any more. Maybe he’d been brooding too long. Perhaps it was time to move on with his life, leave the past and its horribly befouled tapestry behind him.
By the saints, had he listened to his brother once too often?
He walked off the field before he could give that any more thought. He was going to find the wench not to apologize but to offer her his aid. Besides, it was in the national interest to leave her with a good impression of Scotland. And he was nothing if not a good citizen.
He turned down the path. She was quite a goodly distance in front of him. It was tempting to let that be excuse enough not to follow her, but a coward he wasn’t, nor was he lazy. Speak to her he would.
He was a dozen paces behind her when she suddenly ducked behind a bush.
She’d obviously not realized that she was completely visible from behind.
He stared in astonishment as she hiked up her skirt, pulled off her stockings, then shoved her feet back in her shoes and her stockings in her purse.
She adjusted her skirt before she sailed serenely forth from her small hiding place like the HMS Victory.
He wasn’t sure if he should laugh or be appalled. His faint smile faded as he watched her stop in front of his clan’s marker. She was very still for quite some time, then bent to touch the rock. She shivered so forcefully that it was plain even to his eye.
It felt as if she’d touched his soul.
His heart began to beat uncomfortably hard in his chest, and the tremor that ran through him had nothing to do with the fall chill in the air.
He didn’t want this.
He didn’t want any kind of connection with a woman he didn’t know and was certain he wouldn’t like if he did.
She wasn’t his type. He preferred casual clothes, casual women, casual entanglements that went no further than his heart could bear—not that he’d had any of those in quite some time, but his standards hadn’t changed.
Where was his Scottish widow too old to have any more children who could break his heart?
The woman straightened suddenly, then looked around her, as if she wondered who might have seen her do something foolish.
He dived into the bushes at his right.
He waited several minutes until he was certain she was gone, then crawled out of the underbrush only to face a very suspicious-looking National Trust employee.
“Sir, what are you doing?” she asked sternly.
“Looking for my keys,” he lied. That was all he needed—to run afoul of some governmental do-gooder. He brushed off his jeans, rubbed his hands together purposefully, and walked away before he could be questioned further.
The woman was gone. Patrick touched his clan’s headstone in respect as he passed, then continued on to the visitor’s center.
No Yank without stockings loitering there.
He walked swiftly out the entrance and stopped at the edge of the car park. She was getting into her car. He waited until she had pulled out, then ran for his car and jumped in so he could follow her.